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TOTW: Enforcing Social Norms

Posted on:13 May 2019

By:notnull

What are good anarchist responses to people you share spaces with with behaviors you don't like, opinions you disagree with, or principles you don't share?

If you haven't heard, yesterday at the Green Scare Anarchist Bookfair someone stole every copy of Atassa from Little Black Cart. Later in the evening it was discovered that someone pepper-sprayed the inside of Aragorn's tent. Is this an example of a good anarchist response?

Last month a well-known anarchist group 'doxed' an online persona solely for 'getting involved with the US-based "The Society Dispatch" Facebook group blog' (i.e., for associating with eco-extremism). Unfortunately they thoroughly doxed the wrong person, posting the personal identifying information of a completely unrelated person including multiple photos of their children (with tiny black boxes covering their eyes and nose and thus totally hiding their identity).* Is this a good example of what anarchists do when they don't agree with someone?

These are only two recent examples that obviously illustrate cliquishness and covert exertion of authority based on in-groups and social capital. I don't mean to suggest that anarchists have some sacred duty to never attack other anarchists; rather I mean to suggest that anarchists have no good answer for how to establish desirable social norms without covertly replicating the same patterns of authority and group-think they claim out loud to reject.

So what are some better alternatives for how to respond to people we just don't like?

Comments

Is it so hard to inagine that Aragorn is disliked not because every one of his opponents is an,Idpol Leftoid crypto Maoist but because hes a whiney jerk. There was no "inner circle" in this event, just people,that created what they wanted to see happen in the space, people who were looking for someone to create an experience for them, and people that were upset about the event not circulating around them.

It says something when anarchists would rather act morally against another anarchist instead of the Fash they so-called are against

when against the Fash, or the police, or the state, they are docile sheep following the Liberals in yelling and parading around, but when it comes to anarchist morality against other anarchists, who are the first authoritarians? of course, anarchists

anarchists have the ability to be the most authoritarian group because the majority of anarchists are trying to get the rules made for their group and if you don't follow these social-rules you are labeled "fascists" etc

most of these moralists have either never read Atassa or any other Eco-Extremists publication, or are just willfully ignorant to play to the rest of the anarchist milieu

but without thought, the anti-nativeness of anarchists always comes out in full force

Aragorn was a condescending dick to everyone from the start of the bookfair. Upon entering he almost immedietly moved and knocked over some traveling kids pack and other gear without asking them and was rude to a slew of other participants at the bookfair. He made almost no effort to talk to anyone else at the event (contrary to what was said on Bang, most of the people at the event didnt know each other previously) then complained that no events happened, which was false. He made no effort to seek out these workshops, events, and discussions. He talked a bunch of shit to other folks distroing the bookfair throughout tge first day and on the morning of the second, loudly woke a bunch of people up around 9 am and when was confronted, laughed at them. He left a pile of garbage and was smug the entire weekend. From my understanding it was less about atassa and more about Aragorn being a rude entitled asshole. That along with him exclusively reffering to veganism as "anti-native" pissed a bunch of people off. Dude acted like he had every right to,be an entitled asshole and is confused about why he got dunked on over and over. The problem is almost exclusively on Aragorns horrible social skills and complete inability to take any kind of accountability to himself for being a jerk off. Ya got pranked dude, get over it.

Do you realize that none of the behaviours you list are even remotely interesting or count as actual things? Your threshold for snarky judgement and presumption that anyone gives a shit seem wildly out of touch with reality.

ANARCHISTS WOKE ME UP EARLY AND LAUGHED AT ME WAAAH

Who are these people assuming anyone gives a shit about this whiny nothing nonsense? Hopefully it's just trolling.

gonna put it out there, a lot of this probably boils down to "he insulted veganism in a joking way but we took it seriously because we're tuff vegan punx" - i have a hard time thinking whatever traveler might have had their bag accidentally knocked over decided to take revenge for this grave insult.

Or maybe they did, I don't know, apparently a lot of people lack basic fucking social skills on how to approach someone they have a problem with

I know A!, and this is not reflective of his personality. I also think focusinf on the specific catalyst for this totw ignores the larger questions...
Do we become the cops, and the judge, and the executioner? What does it mean to travel to a place where your social mores don't jive with the local ones?
These are far more interesting questions than "who stole Atassa?" or "Is Aragorn! guilty?"

I'm going to go ahead and take your sequencing of events and conclusions you have so helpfully drawn for everyone reading with a large grain of salt. According to your description, aragorn sounds like lots of oogles i have been around. So maybe he was just trying to fit in with yall..when in rome..

Tabling disruptions and pepper spray seem like unnecessary rapid escalations for someone you think is rude (cultural differences? use the social skills you blame others for not having), a jerk, or whatever you mean by whiney..

Or were these stunts all the easier to justify because of some vague internet-tier antifascism lingering around atassa etc.

I get it though, there's ongoing aragorn haters that can't think or dialogue for shit so it's easier to posture in all the ways being described in these comment threads. Weeks of call in shows and not one person can muster anything substantial, I am not going to count Zhachev's foaming at the mouth che guevara sexist tough guy drivel.

Also backpacks fall over a lot, if you are a traveler kid you get used to it. If you are an actual oogle you are too drunk to care. My backpack has fallen over like 5 times a day the past month. What you got in there that's so fragile? Straight edge oogles are a joke, and basically by definition not a real thing, always too self aware and self described..but that's a tangent.

Ive seen Aragorn be rude for a while now. He always comes back to some weird class thing. I grew up in a hick trailer park and have zero clue where he got his idea that his brand of rude fits some working class thing. Why wont he just chill and drop the bizzare act?

Aragorn is middle class. He has a job in tech for open source software. He talked about it on Briliant.

He says people complain that hes "not nice" and that "nice" is a middle class thing so he doesnt need to be that. Idk its sone weird lingering leftism that he uses to justify him having spent the past couple decades being a dick to other anarchists.

That must be very painful, to have your normative behavior critiqued occasionally by a tiny minority group. This is basically as painful as vivisection. Don't they understand that real anarchists believe in Culture First?

Yes, they aren't the same, but the point wasn't to have a contest over which of these behaviors are more egregious. The question is whether stealing from someone / pepper-spraying their sleeping area or doxing someone is a good way to respond to behaviors / people you don't like.

In the case of Aragorn, this was a pretty good response in the sense that it worked without anyone being seriously injured. Heres to hoping he engages critically with his behavior in regards to other people beyond "those Damn homeless kids dont know REAL anarchy and therefore must be Idpol loving reds". Have the smallest bit of respect for people and maybe you won't get your shit stolen by people who experience dangerous spaces beyond an abstract concept. Or did the dangerous space idea get interpreted as everyone can do whatever they want without consequence?

Like 30 on 3 wouldnt go our way? Also do you talk shit on,sabotage for not being direct confrontation? Yeah its way better to run screaming out into the open swinging a bike chain followed by a horde of crusty train kids holding huge knives

sincere question: is A! really saying "those Damn homeless kids dont know REAL anarchy and therefore must be Idpol loving reds"? Or is this a sentiment being expressed by maybe-loosely-affiliated-other-people and getting lumped in with A!'s expressed opinions? I see this happen a lot.

"Have the smallest bit of respect for people and maybe you won't get your shit stolen by people who experience dangerous spaces beyond an abstract concept." <-- is the implication here that dangerous spaces are ones where people steal your shit, like a 'anything goes, no honor among thieves' scenario? Is this supposed to be revenge? Is it supposed to reduce the undesirable behavior in the future?

"Or did the dangerous space idea get interpreted as everyone can do whatever they want without consequence?" <-- I think you're saying here that A! was 'doing whatever he wanted' (i.e. being rude) but how is stealing someone's shit not 'doing whatever they wanted'? Weren't both parties just 'doing whatever they wanted'? So why is one a social transgression worthy of punishment and the other an acceptable consequence? (i.e., how is the answer anything but 'because one party is the ingroup and the other is an outgroup')?

Yeah Im sure criminal records and histories of mental illness had nothing to do with the choice. Better to run from an abusive home and ride the rails than stay behind and become a statistic. Nice middle class analysis tho.

And when being lower class and less privileged (criminal histories, abusive home, mental illness) is currency and cred, people tend to embellish and over time believe their own lies. I have seen this over and over. I am not arguing that anyone get a job etc etc. Just be real about it. There has been multiple posts (probably from you) "educating" everyone about how traveller's pack is their home etc. Pumping that shit hard to make aragorn sound like more of a monster. Not only did he knock over someone's backpack, it was a HOMELESS KID'S BACKPACK with a history of abuse, arrests, and mental illness!

It's sad to me that an attempt to get away from how accountability is usually enforced though the "dangerous space" policy really just ended up being a bunch of kids being passive-aggressive dicks because they perceived that they were being disrespected. The stated intent of this policy was that "everyone who attends is expected to utilize their own individual agency in directly dealing with and solving their problems with others." While in theory this could have meant people trying to actively work out a conflict with each other face to face, it seems like it ended up being just another attempt at enforcing group norms through faceless bullying. The bold claim of disavowing a policing role just ends up with policing by a different name - but hey, they didn't kick Aragorn! out, so they're not moralists or something.

So I guess an alternative might be to encourage working out conflicts in a face to face manner? One can dream!

You take that back! Commander Zhachev will be arriving at the GSABF any minute now and you ALL better hope he doesn't go full hurricane on your asses. If ANY of you show your faces you're done! Pussies!
HURRICANE GOON SQUAD OPERATIVE 29

Some people are more confrontational than others.
I usually resort to avoidant behavior first. Best resort varies according to the situation.

Courtesy, politeness, basic respect can help avoid rubbing people the wrong way, and have a more pleasant and less tense environment.

But all people can’t all like each other, or even minimally get along. Some are straightforward about it, some are passive-aggressive, some are hypocritical.

If being “civil” has a bad sound from anti-civ perspective, then let’s use the word conviviality as something that’s generally desireable.

The acts described in the TOTW prompt can be characterized as petty, disproportionate, misguided, and malicious. Maybe it was worth it for them for the laughs or satisfaction they got out of the schadenfreude.

Since these foolish acts of aggression cannot be eliminated, how should people on the receiving end react, or be proactive towards?

Paranoia against petty out-of-hand “pranks” (or rather harassment) is not a pleasant way to live, but safety precautions are advisable. I hope this opportunity can serve as motivation for strengthening the awareness of potential threats in spaces that advertise themselves as dangerous, and not to let our guards down too much in the places where we feel safe.

After being on the receiving end of an act of petty aggression/harassment, one begins to consider at what point one may retaliate, and how (not all ponder these things, some just react fueled by anger). Overreacting to such an act by escalating agression would perpetuate a cycle of petty revenge, but one also doesn’t want to encourage this type of action by letting it pass unremarked.

Ideally, one could reprimand or threaten the culprit by saying or proving they got off easy this time, but that usually you are prepared to defend yourself to avoid such petty attacks in a way that would impose immediate costs (in the form of pain, humiliation, payment) on the would be culprit.

Some people feel emboldened by circumstances, or by the power facilitated to them by tech in the case of doxing for example, and play out their revenge fantasies without consequences. So in short, it’s a mix of prevention and consequence as deterrence what’s needed, in a personal/interpersonal level.

Those that learn how to deal with these things in a measured and proportional way, do do without having to verbalize it like so, therefore it sounds silly to type it out; there’s an intuition component.

But other’s can’t be or won’t be bothered with playing nicely and we have to deal with them as best we can.

Seems like in this space, they could have been more proactive by treating the crusty kids there with a bit more decency and respect instead of tossing their packs (aka their houses for anyone who's never been homeless) and waking them up and being a dick about it for no reason. Maybe A! doesn't have any understanding,of,that culture/experience or maybe he just didnt care to think,about it and was more focused on what he wanted to happen. In the context of this space, in response to the books being stolen it would have been cool to see a collective discussion on the books and ITS organized by the books supporters. In a broader sense, I feel like people can protect themselves from this kind of shit in dangerous spaces by being more aware of their surroundings, being more willing to,initiate a,conversation (if that's the route they want to take) understanding they aren't entitled to dialogue with anyone, and protecting their shit better.

Or . . . maybe that never fucking happened? Just because some troll writes that Aragorn knocked over an oogle's pack and was acting like an idiot you immediate think this happened like this? Aragorn has been around the scene for a while, surely he wouldn't have lasted this long if every supposed thing said about him was true.

Not to sound like a grumpy old man, but this shit has escalated in the past several years in a way that is alarming. Yes, tactics need to evolve (though pepper spray and lock-gluing are pretty old-school and oogle-worthy methods), doxing is new ground, and like other technologies of war (napalm, the atomic bomb...) Need to be approached with fear and caution.

Yes. pepper spray and steal and sabotage our enemies, but who are our enemies? If that isn't clear, we will eat ourselves. We can have personal beef and grievances without recreating the self-destructive world of the left (I actually envision something like Fredy Perlman described in Against His-tory, Against Leviathon! where we put on armor to protect ourselves from the outside, but the armor becomes part of us and we, in turn become part of the Leviathon). Or maybe we can't, which is where some of the projects Aragorn! works on are actually so timely, at least in my opinion.

To the bigger question: are oogles, or anarchists, or whoever the cops now? I don't care what color you add to your black flag, but this is actually an existential question for anarchists, in my opinion.

My understanding is that others have tried dialogue before and that didn't go anywhere. If you want people to try the same tactic over and over regardless of results you might as well ask them to vote too. Judging by the LBC event schedule for the week direct action got the goods. I'm having a laugh but kudos to peppergate rascals.

And others have tried tearing up copies of Atassa, which also didn't go anywhere. But the question is, "where do you want to go?" if where you want to go, is controlling other people's behavior based on something as ignorable as rudeness, or a mediocre book, get the fuck out of anarchy world and hang out with all the norms who love the control/controlled relationship.

Ya'll act like Aragorn is some paragon that can do no wrong. Dude fucked up and got taken to the task. If A! posters actually did anything but post on leftypol those homeless kids might actually be scared.

Who is acting like this, and where? And which 'posters' are you referring to?

you're really not doing anything to cast doubt on my claim that this is clearly a vendetta motivated by power and social group dynamics. which is fine, maybe you aren't trying to, I just want to be clear about what's actually being implied by your words.

people they don't know, like someone going to a bookfair, where they were invited and haven't heard anything different from that, how are they supposed to know that there is even conflict to address in private?
to take the weekend as an example, obviously.

Why would any self-respecting anarchist or anarch hang out in a decadent milieu structure at this point. What anarchy needs is discursive spaces where the letterists and beats of the 21st century can emerge. This means you need more of an old fashioned book club culture, not a naked political milieu which is tertiary radical historical development. You don't hang out in 30s syndicalist old world anarchist spaces at the end of the 1930s, you find where the new though currents are at(Rexroth, Goodman, Isou ect) and intercourse with them. Look at where the altright came from, it came from the likes of John Bowden, Mouldbug, Land The Young Reactionaries ect, in other words it did not come from people like Bill White who represented an older ideological praxis that wasn't working anymore. Take note radicals and anarchists of the future. Find the new thought cultures that are not infected by old naked political procedures.

Again, political milieus are tertiary developments after the primary philosophical literary aesthetic developments and the secondary formative political explosions. It's the back half of an epoch that has nothing new to give. It also doesn't help that punk political culture(which is notoriously puritanical) is a big part of it.

Again, if you actually want to talk about ideas find the new though currents that are starting right now. Yes it's formative but it's better then tertiary stage milieus at their decadent point(like the 1930s before).

Yes siree, the idea of a paradigm flip has faded, the same old hackneyed moralities and processes continue, even amongst the radical milieu. An alternative approach to dispersing and phasing out political power has been lost amidst the cacophony of charismatic banalities and the chaos of obsessive negative nihilistic denial cultures.

has become the McGuffin in this psychodrama. This xtyrantx video is a hyperbolic example of the same dynamics:https://youtu.be/nwzWoVSnj5A
In this example the football is object a injected into a volatile milieu and a melee insues. There are 3 basic types of actor in this scenario, the instigators, the participators and the spectators. There is nothing inherently wrong with bringing a football to a show or tossing it into the mosh pit and without the football it would be just another banal hardcore show. The question is do you want to play this game? Please confirm.

The totw photo exemplifies the present anarchist social critique, the shallow visual analysis of the ass-end of an argument, the outlet for the final product of cultural digestion. Sometimes it looks good, and the desire to align oneself with its pursuit arouses conflict and division with those who expect some type of faith based devotion to its own social reproduction. Sad :(

After all the crap that LBC has been through the last few years, I'm curious what AK Press, CrimethInc., and other popular anarchist publishers think about such things. I haven’t really seen anything from other anarchist publishers, other than by perhaps publishing certain anarchist antifa writers, like Twitter outspoken Shane Burley – who has some choice comments about Aragorn! on their Twitter just yesterday. People like that are offering a provocation for others to attack, backed behind their seeming knowledge, which in reality is just them being an asshole. Since when did treating other anarchists like shit become anarchist? And yet, no stand taken from people looking on, but what if it became popular to attack other anarchist publishers (by anarchists?), what would popular anarchist publishers do? Reasons? I’m sure people can find some terrible people somehow involved published somewhere along the lines (ahem AK Press). What a sad state of affairs. In other words, people who seem to be egging all this crap on and their friends, are they to be called out for attacking anarchist projects or maybe they can bring it to an end? Do we need a giant anarchist publisher asking the terrible community to play nice, or would it be possible for people to realize this on their own good accord? I see no point in anarchists attacking other anarchists in this way. It’s a huge turn off and hell, sounds like what the State apparatus wants or is. Next year, what happens when the attack! bolo rolls up on the old church yall got that Aragorn! was raving about on their podcast and said was really nice, literally giving the place huge props as one of nicest places they’ve ever been it sounded like. Sad.

There have been some good comments already on the TOTW (and a handful of absolute garbage). People are saying, people should fight - you realize #1.) what you are fighting over, dumb. As other comments have mentioned, you prolly never even read the book or have any valid critique, but just hopping on the literal train bandwagon. #2.) you're fighting someone in their 50s who came to share books and anarchist ideas? If you don’t like someones ideas, I can think of a ton more ways to approach the subject rather than destroying their books, tent, and car and then posting on the Internet about fighting them IRL. Maybe have a conversation and move on, or do something else productive and don’t look back. Breath. Grow. And keep that fake as fuck anarchist posturing shit and people being cool about attacking other anarchists and their projects away.

If you want to help support LBC, I think one of the best ways is to become an accomplice: “For $100 / year ($200 international) you get every new title we publish (at least one book a quarter, and multiple pamphlets) and 10% off of every Little Black Cart distribution item. We will continue to push out our books four times a year.”https://littleblackcart.com/index.php?dispatch=products.view&product_id=516

LBC overall is a cool book business, a lot of things go beyond the normal anarchist lit, changed my life in fact. However, not sure if aragorn could have expected anarchist culture to behave any differently, once you put ideas out there there's no way to control how other ppl will respond. I honestly wouldn't go and just start talking about eco-extremism with any random person, as publishers lbc will clearly look like they are taking some "position" in defense of them.

Overall it seems better to just leave the milieu, and talk about ideas in a way that isn't prefixed by anarchist identity...

previous anon here, and no i'm sorry, our narrative must erase others (especially women) entirely from this, unless they are of course aragorn's wife (which of course all the women ever mentioned in relation to lbc, anews, etc must be) who we are certain those nameless women must be.

Yo Aragorn reaps what he sows, so does this collective. Remember when this website posted that communique from those mexican extremist implying it'd be cool to kill scott? Well this kind of shit is your cosmic rejoinder. You filled the pool with shit, now deal with it and swim in toxic slurry.

yo bro. member when the other really sweet websites that we bros approve of posted the same communique because they too realized it was relevant new that anarchists might want to be aware of? i member. *high five*

If this site was so in the right publishing that sociopathic trash why did it get taken down? There is little ideological consistency with this site or LBC, both just enjoy courting controversy, its an ego project, and if Aragorn finds there are social consequence to being a jerk... its way past time...

geez, you think that might be because they both consist of people other than Aragorn!? You kids keep projecting your absentee fathers behind stuff you don't like, which would be funny except you also feel the need to lash out and it comes out in these sorts of temper tantrums.

i’d clamp down on comment section remorselessly.
banish anything remotely trollish. only registered accounts allowed, put a limit on one comment per article per day per poster. delete accounts after a single remotely trollish post.

Completely agree with rocinante. I only wish LBC found a way to do European and UK distribution. There is enough interest in the post-left and whatever their successors are to make it a viable proposition. You won't get all the whining about Atassa over here either.

Some thoughts from someone who was there:
- Aragorn! had conversations with people at the bookfair who were interested in having conversations. The oogle nihilist clique (a majority of the bookfair) didn't engage with anyone outside of their crew.
- The so-called "direct action" against Aragorn! was no surprise given that the majority of people at the bookfair root their politics in ridiculous violent posturing (zines that are just sub-Novatore wordsalad rants, ubiquitous brassknuckle/gun/dynamite aesthetics) and anti-intellectualism (i.e. adopting anarchist identities - nihilist, insurrectionist, individualist, anti-civ, whatever - without really engaging with the ideas). Of course none of the keyboard critics tried to challenge Aragorn! to his face, given the flimsy basis of their ideas. It's easier to be a super-hard nihilist-pepperspray-facetat warrior in a group of others who dress/think exactly as you do than to actually defend your beliefs.
- I hope the organizers understand that if they do this event again, it will probably only be their oogle friends who show up. Who wants to come to an event where some kid is going to steal your shit or pepperspray your stuff because of vague personal grievances?

To conclude: the emotional/intellectual immaturity of many in the anarchist space is making public events just not worth attending. If anarchists (especially those who drone on and on about being "against morality" and how "nihilist" they are) can't handle someone being a little uncouth or tabling a fucking book they don't like, then maybe it's best to just let them have their subculture of fragile imbeciles.

here's your dangerous spaces policy, and the exact kind of behaviour one would expect from people who would actually organize an event with that as its principle, at work!

But who cares, fuck everyone going on and on about care, we're dangerous! Being in care-free spaces sounds ideal to me.
Whooooo would want care taken with them? Who would want people to care about them being anywhere? having any kind of good time?

"ps. they weren't blurred in the original post and those poor kids are ridiculed in school daily because their daddy is a bad bad man. but nice try ;)" - I'm hoping this comment is satirical? or are you suggesting that 325 has some kind of massive readership including elementary school children?

Whenever another round of Milieu vs Aragorn et al pops up theres a TOTW. Am I right in saying that each time they're written by part of the lbc crew? They seem editorialized in that way.

And then there is the moderation of comments

Id like to see next week's TOTW written by someone in that oogle crew. Or maybe next time theres @news crew scene beef, have someone who can write an impartial sounding thing. Im not saying this in the interest of some sort of fairness, its your website. I just think itd be more interesting and a different framing could make for better responses.

I would absolutely love this and invite them or anyone to do so. They're of course also welcome to call into Anarchy Bang and I invite anyone to visit the IRC as well. If be happy to discuss ideas about things that could be written.

Anybody who thinks that oogles are anarchists has either spent no time with oogles or no time with anarchists. Avoid oogles or wait a few years until they're allowed to cash in their trust funds then befriend them.

anybody who can't see that this is exactly the same type of nonsense that dr bones pulled on wolfi by riling up all the leftist moralists to screech "fascisttttt," to gain cred/social capital/etc, is either an idiot or a liar.

but back to the totw question…

"So what are some better alternatives for how to respond to people we just don't like?"

i'm not sure such a thing as a better alternative exists. not in this world. i'm certain that even if it does then it will be completely unknowable due to the amount of terribleness that everyone is consumed by and caught up in (knowingly or otherwise). i do not think anybody involved in these mentioned incidents of stupidity have the capacity to authentically know themselves let alone have the authentic relationships with others that might allow them to find anything like a better alternative.

the best part is that incidents like these are easily avoided and utterly meaningless.

The TOTW is not 'why is everyone so meeean to LBC!!!' The TOTW is, "What are good anarchist responses to people you share spaces with with behaviors you don't like, opinions you disagree with, or principles you don't share?" And hey! Maybe your answer is 'steal their shit, pepper spray their tent, and dox their family.' That's totally cool, I'm just asking that people be explicit about it.

BTW, I wasn't at the book fair, I'm not part of LBC, and I'm not unsympathetic to the idea that people can act how they want in private spaces (hell, even public ones). So I wouldn't really say I'm mad. I'm asking what people's ideas are for handling scenarios like this. Maybe you have some good ideas?

about 'morality'? Do you say, for example: 'Hey, don't hit little Johnny, that's not nice because...'
How would nihilists raise their children as amoral? Notnull, I'm not saying you're a nihilist, I'm just putting a second question to the nihilists out there, regarding educating young children.

I basically raised my children in a very behaviorist way. I let them figure out the consequences of their actions as much as possible without putting themselves in danger or violating the boundaries of others. Obviously there's some 'moralism' in there because it wasn't 'don't hit Johnny because if you do that he will hit you back and you won't like the consequences' but to a really large extent my parenting had little to do with encouraging my kids to do things or not do them because they are 'right' or 'wrong'. I wouldn't call myself a moral relativist but definitely care a lot more about consequences than about principles (which I usually think are bullshit).

You are not, nor shall you EVER be a nihilist. YOU have no comprehension of the abyss or of infantile consciousness and the subtle differences between instinctual emotional reflexive responses and calculated indifferent denial psychology, which is what you are indoctrinating your children with, a pseudo-nihil-esque negative set of values which diminish the spontaneity of infantile behavior and places a negative set of values for their everyday relationships.
HEAR ME FROM MY ZONE OF GRACE, or become a banal replication of herd morality!!
This will be deleted as usual by the confused agents of culture who prey upon the original thought lords!

1. LBC was invited, then wasn't (although that wasn't clear until decoded 6 months later), and then we talked to friends who weren't going (but were listed) and intended to take their space (as we had their material with us).
2. There were two bookfairs. A very small group of tablers and a larger group (30ish) of friends (who were young and oogle-y). The friends seemed to have a good time. They had meals, presentations, and lots of information from "the organizers". The tablers mostly had none of that.
3. At 10:15 (when I arrived for 10:00 am event) on Saturday all of the tables were occupied (clearly set up the night before). Occupied with zines. Mostly the friendship group bookfair didn't have people sitting at their tables. Just zines.
4. I setup on empty couch and the area in front of it. I may have moved a backpack or two to an otherwise unoccupied area.
5. None of the friendship group talked to me directly during day one (or two). I did approach a few of them (like "the organizer") but received evasive answers. I had a great time otherwise. Thanks for asking.
6. Day two I saw that the Atassa heist happened about 10 minutes before the live podcast (https://anarchybang.com/podcast/episode-19-green-scare-anarchist-bookfair/). Also of note. If there were 30 people in the friendship group they all left (or maybe 28/30) prior to podcast. I had asked for people to record plugs for their project/etc. This friendship group stayed at a distance from me (and their bookfair) for the rest of day two.
7. In addition to stealing the Atassa's, "someone" also pepper sprayed my tent (but I wouldn't have noticed if it wasn't talked about on the internet), and someone stuffed things into my gas tank (discovered 50 miles down the road). At the very least they were clogging my tank (I didn't notice until gas was pooling at my feet) but as I heard more things falling in (like marbles) and the material I scraped out was some sort of tied together plastic material...
8. I have been driving the past 24 hours (ie unavailable).
9. It is also worth noting that I alone the entire weekend. I was inviting conversation. I was not wearing a giant knife, waving a bat around, or surrounded by my 30 closest friends. If that was an opportunity to get in my face and tell me what for...

Why is every personal/individla perceptiion of an event now considered 'gaslighting'? You people have been bandying this shit around for a few years now and it's fucking pathetic. you know it's some dishonest bullshit so i ask this sincerely, please stop.

"Not that I want to participate in this but" here's my gaslighting version of what happened.

why do you people redefine terms like gaslighting to mean something entirely different than its actual meaning? how is it even possible for aragorn to gaslight people with a comment or two on the internet lol smh? you don't make any sense, bucko. gaslighting takes a longer period of time than a couple of comments on the internets to get someone to question their sanity, retrod.

the dynamic of what you went through is not dissimilar to a student being bullied for being a nerd, of course, adjusting for scale/gravity, age, and context/specifics.

today i learned the word “oogle”. it seems fitting to describe the agressors.

call me a delirious optimist full of wishful thinking, a fool, but i really wish these oogles do something to redeem themselves. not imagining an apology, but paying it forward. if that’s how they treat (un)friendlies, may they be proportional to their enemies beyond empty rhetoric.

I wouldn't even ask for this. In my opinion their behavior makes total sense given their perspective and opinions about aragorn, and who am I to judge the way they handled it? I think their perspective was extremely uncharitable and their behavior was shitty, and I *definitely* think it's a game of social power and dynamics and not rooted in any reasonable strategy for facilitating better social interactions. But I have to confess that if this happened to someone I thought was a shitty person I would definitely find it hilarious.

And that's the problem, isn't it? We're always going to have to deal with people we don't like and behavior we think is 'wrong', and escalating social power dynamics through stealing / destroying their shit is how you get civilization.

Holy shit. Talk about jealous kids who can't get over aragorns percieved fame in their own eyes. You all sound like a TMZ comments section outraged that the princess of Wales opened the car door wrong. Seriously. You sound like upset fan boys that the person you want to be didn't pay attention to you. You can't even admit that you were literally whipped up by Atassa haters and acted on their behalf. Putting shit in someones gas tank cause they woke your heroin addled ass up? You are a joke. Overdose already.

It has this terrible precocious pettiness I can only assume evolves out of living in the white Western bubble, I just cannot think of any other influence which creates this distinct psychological profile. May I be boldly provocative and blame the education system and the culture of rationale economic futures it brainwashes the children with, as well as an unhealthy moral map which prejudges others on their tastes, appearance and abilities.
Oh how I long for the days when one could haul a philistine out in the street and give them a good beating for being crass and ignorant. I will probably be deleted again for saying that,because its hurt some poor little sensitive puritan punk, hahaa, I don't care anymore, I'll just sit and watch all the banal normal clones go about their moronic fetished lives, all saying and doing the same thing and then whining mwaha!

I mean, given all the negative feedback for the "kill all humans" ideology, and the fact that LBC said more than "it's just a stupid book filled with violent rhetoric, enjoy it or don't" is really the dangerous space of life in action. Nobody really owned the attassa books period, and thanks for the juicy info notnull.

I don't have any new ideas for enforcing social norms, im way better at being on the receiving end of them and working from there rather than trying to create them to be imposed on other people.

the continued marxist trajectory of anarchism puzzles me as well, i don't see any reason why there are those few people who feel the need to defend the actions of brutal dictators, especially since in the US educators tend to aggressively tell people how much of a dick stalin was. I guess it makes them feel subversive to tout the most radical/revolutionary in a country that despises communism and socialism. Or maybe they just read the entire das capital and were convinced that it should be the bible, i understand this even less because it's such a boring and long book.

I also don't fully understand why LBC has continued interest in the anarchist scene, they were around during the NATO craze which i guess is part of it, but generally any space that has the "anarchist" label is a moralizing hell hole where people just can't accept the way other people are. I would have probably gone to the green scare if it was a couple hours from me, but the only way you really enjoy those gatherings is if you are still really into ELF/ALF ways of thinking or you are a vegan. They probably would have thought i was a cop and just talked shit about me behind my back anyway.

I've been to two anarchist book fairs and didn't really feel like i had any reason to continue developing any sort of a friendship with the people there, even if i gave them my kind words of support when they said things i thought were true.

1. the "marxist trajectory" is because we're all still living in a late-stage, totalitarian capitalist police state, or did it slip your mind?

2. I sincerely doubt there's actually any stalinists with meaningful influence in the anarchist milieu.

3. can't speak for lbc obviously but I'm much more interested anarchist spaces and their potentialities than the least of the people who pass through them and the stupid bullshit they think they think and say. what's the ratio of interesting people in any given "scene"? (hint, it's low)

"1. the "marxist trajectory" is because we're all still living in a late-stage, totalitarian capitalist police state, or did it slip your mind?"

hmmm, five words that describe about everything that the world encompasses to you, interesting. Not that it's completely NOT that, but i still have more questions overall, and I'm not gonna just shutup and leave it at that.

"2. I sincerely doubt there's actually any stalinists with meaningful influence in the anarchist milieu."

well according to LBC there's a pretty huge maoist influence on modern day anarcho-leftism, i know a communist who justifies stalins behavior with some weak "it was about the workers" horseshit.

"3. can't speak for lbc obviously but I'm much more interested anarchist spaces and their potentialities than the least of the people who pass through them and the stupid bullshit they think they think and say. what's the ratio of interesting people in any given "scene"? (hint, it's low)"

That's why OUTSIDE of the scene, there's more diversity of thought in general, and people actually have projects and life experiences that get past all the tiresome philosophical quagmires. Plus, i think overall people give to much lip service to being an "interesting person", i don't surround myself with just people who are "interesting", the friends i have are interesting because i know them more deeply than i know all the other walking meat sacks.

"everything that the world encompasses"? No … no, not at all. Just the elephant in the room for social dynamics that easily explains that "why" you tossed out there. Why Marx? No culty deification of the guy here, he just answered those questions a long time ago: here's all the ways capitalism will destroy itself and much else and why that should interest you if you're not a millionaire. Full stop. Basic, basic stuff imo. Not my intention to make it a bigger deal than it is.

"according to lbc, MAOISTS EVERYWHERE OMG!!!" Yes, that's just as silly as it ever was. I was originally drawn to this site mainly to mock this paranoid, mccarthyist fantasy. As MURIKA as apple pie, that shit is. Please imagine me hanging around here, compulsively scoffing at the ridiculous notion that "the reds" are what anarchists need to worry about. Post leftism in general has a long, cringey history of barking up this tree… at nothing. Whether they're legitimately unhinged like Bob Black or using the phantom red menace to distract from how functionally useless most of their theories are. Still! I like this place. I've learned a lot and owe a huge debt to lbc crew for that understanding.

3. You maybe missed my point? Every "scene" has shit people. You can't have social gatherings with dilettantes and clueless hangarounds, dragging the collective intelligence down. Why single out anarchism for this dynamic? People are people.

"I also don't fully understand why LBC has continued interest in the anarchist scene, they were around during the NATO craze which i guess is part of it, but generally any space that has the "anarchist" label is a moralizing hell hole where people just can't accept the way other people are"

SirEinzige says the holocaust, for example, is disgusting though not wrong? Not wrong because SirEinzige does not believe in morality. Morality is supposedly a social norm, right? When an action is classed as wrong, it is because it is believed to be bad, universally bad, universally wrong, universally disgusting. Likewise rape and paedophila. How can an action be disgusting and not wrong? Why can't SirEinzige say the holocaust, for example, is wrong, morally wrong? Is human rights seen in a similar light: that morality and rights are can be given and taken away by whoever is the powerful at the time: that morality and rights are subject to time? Yes, there was a time when rape and paedophilia was acceptable (to those perpetrating such acts) but that didn't mean such acts were right, acceptable? Nihilism is the 'belief' in amorality, is this correct? My feeling is that even more despicable acts would be carried out in nihilistic society than in our supposed moral society. Enforcing social norms is a tricky one. Great topic of the week and could be useful for Anarchy Bang to flesh out over a couple of hours?

As for Aragorn! and publishing ATASSA: Aragorn! sees himself as the Malcolm Maclaren of Anarchy USA: A modern-day Situationist...and possibly an attention seeker?

>If you don't believe in morality, then what about all these atrocities that were done in the name of morality!?

This argument isn't as solid as you seem to think it is. In any case, nihilists aren't exactly known for proselytizing, and as far as I can see, don't advocate a "nihilistic society" any more than physicists advocate for a society that follows the laws of physics.

As for your views on A!, I don't see how any of those opinions are relevant to the discussion.

i see it as ultimately part of an anarchist way of thinking, that there is no "morality" in the sense that there are no "laws", that morality in the western sense is a universalization of "right" and "wrong" which brings more clarity to these discussions than just assuming that there is a morality prescribed to all us minions that needs to be fallowed. The work of nihilism is a never ending abyss!!

time, then isn't this a moral law? No one has to call it a moral law, call it whatever but it still means the same thing. Therefore, there are 'morals.' It is 'morally wrong' to rape. It seems egoists and nihilists try to fudge this by using language because it may lead to a slippery slope where acceptance of morals becomes apparent to them. I'm not talking about a Gov enforcing a moral here, just that a very high percentage of us agree that rape is wrong and anyone who rapes is usually chastised in some way or other. Molyneux uses the term UPB or Universal Preferential Behaviours, which is the same as morals just using different words.

Very true, the definition of rape is ambiguous in the context of conquest. Rape can sometimes be included in the social repertoire of acts conducive to reciprosity.
Sometimes being raped psychologically can make one a more wholesome human entity in a wild existent.

I'm not at all saying that animal rape is "good", or anything like that, but if you witness a squirrel raping a squirrel, whelp, are you gonna kill that squirrel or smack it on the head...preach to it? No, you probably won't catch that squirrel cuz those things are fucking fast! I've tried to catch squirrels with my hands before, didn't happen. I'm just saying that "wrong" is a human concept that is never the same in two circumstances...

With humans, with our ability conceptualize of morality or a universal good, this all just has un-fathomable implications that will never be sorted out with a philosophical discussion, let us all take a moment to praise the grey area, not the black and white, but what we don't know, and "unfortunately" must be left back to the individuals in the given situations. Aragorn!, with a little deliberation, you could find out who stole your precious books and sabotaged your precious car, trust me! TRUST ME!

I just had a sudden image flash of a nihilistic chastity belt device to deal with the "grey zone" which has a miniature guillotine type device at the front AND rear of it. Or have I strayed off the topic?

Gol-dern anarchists and your meta-questioning every time someone throws a pie at a book fair!

Who would have thought that a Brand Name Anarchist under capitalism would exhibit anti-social, condescending, narcissistic behavior? What ever is the anarchist economy coming to?

The question of anarchists being cops here is the same as “If you like tolerance so much why are you being intolerant of my intolerance?” It’s a classic zero-sum trope and is more a language game than anything. Any attempt to solve a problem is a problem for the person who caused the problem, it doesn’t make the person trying to solve it a problem for anyone but the problem causer.

So who gets to judge what’s acceptable behavior? Well, the people immediately around you, I’d say. Welcome to the wonderful world of anti-civ theory! Where kindness, harmony, equality, and humanity are enforced by direct interaction. That’s the whole freakin point!

Also welcome to humanity, where we’re a bunch of sneaky little coyotes. Aggressive behavior is far more likely to be surreptitious than confrontational in our species. Like the classic abusive tactic of doing totally aggravating things and then acting like any response to them is the rEAaaEaLlL aggression.

This whole thing reminds me of the worst tendencies of the punk and metal scenes, where whiny, socially inept people try to dress up the same old highschool cool kid clique bullshit with vague political rhetoric.

it's still pretty interesting how active this discussion was, it will be removed tomorrow. I think people just like to talk about these dramatic situations, it's also funny how this happened to any other of the people there it wouldn't have become this topic of a week. We all just love Aragorn!, that anarcho-celebrity for only the people on this website, lmfao

I don't usually visit this site anymore (maybe once every few months I'll scroll through the pages for interesting articles) and I rarely post because around the time of the Occupy Wall St. I got fed up with the comment section being flooded with bizarre violent posturing and a lack of coherent discourse (not everyone who was posting, just most). About a year after that I noticed that most of the younger generation of anarchists became something I no longer recognized. I was made aware, through some friends of mine, of the drama that unfolded around the Seattle Anarchist Bookfair surrounding the book Atassa and thought that was a pretty good final exit point, so I just gave up on you. I decided that the anarchist galaxy in the United States had become gross to me and took my leave.

I still check up on you all from time to time (visiting sites like It's Going Down, Puget Sound Anarchists, etc.) but, I maintain a distance. Since the Trump presidency Anarchy in the USA has devolved into something even worse, it's cruder and more self-destructive then ever. While I still think of myself as an anarchist, I'm really glad I stopped being involved in your circles and the petty, toxic dramas that you fill your lives with.

I seriously hope that this isn't the new normal for Anarchist thought/action and that the (A) galaxy in the US as whole can grow out of this nonsense. Maybe this is just what the internet does to people? In which case I'm glad I limit myself to only a few times a year.

My wish to the newcomers who find themselves interested in anarchism, only to see these depressing dramas take precedent over what are otherwise beautiful grasps at true freedom, is: these depressing/embarrassing feuds will just die already and something much more level-headed will take their place. I hope newcomers can see through this highschool non-sense and build a better anarchist galaxy than what these knuckleheads left for you. Good luck!

I'm sure this comment will be lost among the other 130+ comments so I'm not even sure why I wrote it other than to be a dis on the people so tied up in petty-revenge/macho-posturing. I bet that someone will say they're glad I left the (A)-space. So am I.

I still find it fascinating that the whole of all of the anarchists at the GSABF have been lumped together as degenerate youths vs the “sensible” older generation. Especially when expressed by people who were not even there. Emphasis: if you weren’t there it’s an exaggeration to say what happened re: Aragorn was a big deal to anyone but him. This drama with Aragorn took up maybe 2% or less of the entire book fair, in passing conversations. There was so much more to do and see and people to talk to than the fun sponge who prefers to preach than discuss. The people antagonizing him and his sympathizers do things in their own way, sure. Maybe it’s more polite to ask a douche to go away but when he was told not even to show up and do so anyway, what do you think the message being sent is? Woe be to the anarchy that suffers restriction and suffocation of its wild spirit from the authoritarianism of True Anarchists. Keep blaming the “newcomers” though.

...he wasn't told to not show up because nobody really cared that he was there. Maybe if he wasn't a douche people wouldn't be mean to him? idk. Nobody kicked him out or anything neither. He wasn't the center of attention. The illegal workshops and tablers who had crow bars and other fun things was way more exciting than attassa. Sure, one could say this was dangerous space for aragorn. But not everyone posed a danger to him. And that is what's so neat! There was no "lynch-mob" leftism. Just free individuals having fun. Play. Anarchy.

Who's doing the restricting here? sounds like the people telling Aragorn not to come to the event and then doling out their punishments against him for supposedly violating this restriction.

So GSABF is a variant of the SABF with its banning due to Behaviors, Patterns, and Decisions. Safe space and dangerous space really not all that different when you pull back the rhetoric. Disappointed that people that would show up to an event billed like the GSABF would fall into the usual exclusion pattern.

Pepperspray is the meatspace "thumbs-down" or "dislike" on facebook for some it sounds like.

Applause and sympathy for the perspectives expressed by Morchella_importuna above. There are probably other equally thoughtful and healthy posts above but I haven't got the time to surf the whole thread.

I was around, but never really a part, of the US anarchist subculture for 31 years. It has never been a late 20th to early 21st century expression of what was found with communist anarchists like Goldman, Berkman, Flores Magon and others but something that is consistently a tarnished mirror reflection of the pathologies of the consumer culture around us. The prospects for a mass popular revolutionary movement in a fast declining United States are improving by the day. But this subculture has nothing to contribute here.

What's up, just popping in. Noticed there's some intense scene drama going on and just needed to let you guys know that GODDAMN it feels good to not care about this at all. I suggest you join me. Anyway, see ya.

As an ex oogle reformed house punk what happened was pure ooglery. It’s wild that many of these kids politics were probably gleamed from books LBC has published. I’m not surprised about what happened but I am hype that their are newer green anarchists projects popping off everywhere. Devour the older generation I guess. Oogles are oogles are oogles ya know?

If you take a step back from your position on the controversy, Conflict Resolution is exactly what the average-joe means when they say, "Anarchy doesn't work." It's true that most people will seek a 3rd-party to resolve an issue if they feel they are on the losing end. Children will cry for mommy or daddy, students call on the teacher, neighbors dial the cops and the petty take you to court.

By Aragorn and his sympathizers putting out the question, "Are the oogles, and their actions, anarchist?", they're looking at the broader milieu as the 3rd-party to resolve this conflict.

Seeking a single, normative path to resolve conflicts in anarchy doesn't seem very anarchist to me. Maybe it's not anarchy you crave if you fear the escalation of violence.

*BTW: I think the oogle or oogles who fucked with Aragorn are chicken shits. It also CAN'T be said that Aragorn is NOT a dick who DOESN'T deserve all the dislike, hatred and malignment from his critics.

asking people to talk about a practical thing that really happened to some of us (the oogles and a! and related parties) is not the same as asking for mediation. (that being your interpretation absolutely pegs you, btw.) talking about things that impact us, and wanting to find out what people who care about the beautiful idea think about these things, is part of a) thinking about things differently (or trying to), b) being part of a group of people--aka a community if you require the jargon--includes getting people's thoughts, feedback, insight, et fucking cetera.

>Maybe it's not anarchy you crave if you fear the escalation of violence.

I don't think most people talking here do, though - I think what's worth wrestling with is why what at worst were a series of minor slights (assuming they happened at all) resulted in a small group of people stealing someone's shit and fucking with their belongings instead of attempting to resolve it in literally any other way.

Reducing this to "well, that's anarchy" is a non-answer, no different from the people (or maybe just one very talkative anon) have attempted to do by defending their actions as in line with the "dangerous space" policy. If you want to accuse Aragorn! et al of appealing to an authority (which I don't think is true) you also have to point the finger at the people who are taking refuge in the authority of the rules (formal or informal). Or you, for that matter, appealing to some kind of karma (he deserves hatred etc.)

I'm not sure why the oogles acted in such a cowardly and passive manner. No love from me there. However, it's not really my place to tell them how they should have dealt with their problem with Aragorn, nor do they have to justify their actions.

What I'm getting at is, fuck civility and principles and let's be wild.

So you are giving me permission to swing my arms wildly and indiscriminately, woe to whoever meets my fists, at the next public anarchist event? Because fuck principles, let's be wild. Might makes right, survival of the swingiest!

I bet you actually have principles though. Its not my place as a non-oogle to tell the oppressed oogle nations how to deal with their aragorn problems.

I think this is lazy - in a way I want to agree, but it really feels like you're making the same move that the bookfair did a la "we're not actually responsible for anything that happens here."

Personally, I'm not excited to spend my time in spaces like the one you and they have described, because I think there's a strong tendency among some people (such as the oogles who indirectly blessed us with this very long discussion) to just turn that into "I can hurt people here and get away with it" or, in the case of the bookfair organizers, to say "I have no relationship to the people who come into the space I've created."

I have no interest in having to think about rolling into a bookfair with a crew because people might try to hurt me or steal my stuff because of perceived rudeness on my part, nor imagining an anarchist space where people are just strangers to people outside of their immediate crews a la the comment above which says A! wasn't disinvited, they just didn't care he was there (which, fwiw, seems disingenuous but w/e).

A lot of people use "wildness," "uniqueness," etc. in ways that just justify treating people badly and calling it anarchy. I agree that the oogles don't have to justify their actions (though at least some of them or their friends seem to be trying), no one does, but that just means they're being assholes and probably a great reason not to go Wisconsin in the future if this event happens again.

i think is where it's at in terms of generally being happy and not getting fucked with. Of course the oogles got away cuz they were cunning enough and aragorn! obviously wasn't watching his shit or thinking too hard about why he showed up at this green scare event. I don't slight him too much for this because i prefer to be just as nihilistic and carefree about things, but i still appreciate the hilarity and irony of the whole thing, and I don't feel sorry for him either because he clearly doesn't need my pity or support.

And that's great that the green scare was giving work shops on doing illegal stuff, i hope everyone also takes the time to think about who they are doing the illegal stuff with also. It's also important to note that the illegality of an action says nothing about it, the police don't even enforce most of the laws in the books, they just use them semi-egoistically and institutionally in some situations.

Not sure if that's the proper wording even tho I get where you're going with this and connect with it. Social norms are highly problematic from an anarchist perspective as they lead to a bunch of codes and views that alienate the individual as well as minorities as social groups. So did you mean that we're lacking a consensus around some codes and values that define anarchist "morals" (not morality)?

Also, not asking you to proselytize about your beliefs, but I'm not sure I'm getting what your nihilism is about, if it includes morality. In my world, nihilism was by default morally relativistic... so how can it NOT be relativistic? Assuming moral absolutes while being nihilist? I must have misread.

-what time did you wake up this morning? Please state your justification

-what kind of foods do you eat? Please state your justification

-where were you last night? Please state your justification

-are you contributing anything to the anarchist cause? Please state your justification

This is such a typical way of looking at life for some lame ass scenester. What I mean is rather than trying to codify a morality and bullying other people into conforming to it, JUST LIVE AND DON'T BE A DICKHOLE TO OTHER BEINGS, and if someone is doing something that you don't like, before jumping all over them, ask yourself if there's actually anything you can do to change it, and you will find that 99.99% of the time, there isn't. If all the business people and politicians lived in a way that didn't need to be justified, the we wouldn't have a political system period, and yay for anarchy.

For example, you just called me a typical american because you think what i said was not revolutionary enough for you, there's the pidgeon hole of the "normie", the "apathetic dumbfuck", the "nihilist", but the fact that you are reverting to this very stale and over-stated criticism just proves that you are worthlessly spinning your own wheels.

You just don't have all the cops that you would need in order to have people live according to the vision you want to see of the world, just deal with it.

Im going to try to engage more with the actual totw and take a firm position against doxxing other anarchists.

The first reason being that anarchists doxxing anarchists does indeed happen due to disagreements and personal character dislike. These often get blown out of proportion and justified as fighting or deplatforming fascists.

Its too easy
Out of the myriad ways one could respond to people or opinions they don't like, it's all too easy to rush to deploying a cyber-weapon against them (also usually anonymously or pseudonymously) and let the chips fall where they may, because "fuck that guy". You can't be bothered to critically engage or even do your own dirty work, so you blast your anarchist rival's personal info online for everyone to see: actual neo-nazis, police and fbi, employers, creditors, insurance companies, abusive ex-partners, unfriendly neighbors, and other impressionable anarchists looking to feel powerful by using said information to 'fight evil'.

It's not DIY nor direct action
Personally, diy ethic is a big part of my anarchy. If you have the personal info of another anarchist you hate and it's some how to the point of needing to confront them physically, it is hard to justify to me a reason to put said personal info on the public internet when you can try taking things into your own hands? We are anarchists after all..

I feel like there used to be a harder line in the anarchist space against blowing people's real names, doxxing and the like on the internet. For the most part, it was very not cool to do these things 5 to 10 years ago, no matter how hated the target was (talking anarchist rivals here, not neo-nazis). At least among the people i was around. You might have hated Kevin Tucker with a passion, but you didn't give his info to the cops. What happened to bring about this transition to where we are today?

It does more harm than good
Instead of a back and forth that could even be edifying for more than just the aggrieved parties, people quit or are pushed out. Instead of personal growth and coming to some level of mutual understanding, we become further entrenched or double down in a more extreme direction than the initial conflict even called for. The modern call-outs and the doxxings are saying: we have the right answer, you don't, and you should be shut down forever - we don't want you to change or grow. It's one of the reasons why the anarchist space is contracting in vibrancy, numbers, diversity and even what we can imagine is possible at this point. Its similar to what is happening in queer scenes with cliquey power play call outs.

Doxxing other anarchists is weakness.

Ready to have my assumptions, language, and ideas challeneged in good faith.

it can be avoided if the people who want to do it can think about before they do it. If people simply thought "well, i wouldn't like it if i were doxxed", that would kill it immediately. The popularity of doxxing these days has just been exacerbated by the fact that there has been an increasing internetization of everything, which as you have pointed out, has been a very easy tool to reach for when a lot of people already look at the world through moral justification: "THAT PERSON IS AN ASSHOLE, IM GONNA TEACH THEM A LESSON". Of course, looking beyond the basics of the golden rule, there are times when doxxing makes complete sense: for example, doxxing CIs and cops is way to protect people who you give a shit about from them.

i think what the hell happened more recently is a phenomenon i keep hearing more and more about (and i’m 33 but is making me feel old as hell because i am not nor really ever have been a gamer): the game-ification of politics.

how i think it’ll be applied: ironing out humans so everyone conforms to some easily assigned role.

what the roles will be for: no new model of life is emerging, so things are returning to god-kings and technological feudalism.

people are looking toward politics to solve problems these days, and not economics (communism itself a model of feudalism whereby everyone has to conform to an idea of the dictatorship of one class). people seem to want some vague notion of safety, when capitalism as well as anarchy are dances with precarity (capitalism also being an individualizing phenomenon under its predatory, pathological ‘fuck you, i’m out to get mine).

what can we do about the gameification of politics, about striking some sort of balance between individualism and collectivism? i wanna be me and do my own shit, but i miss having friends and sharing food with people...i don’t just want my identity to be only online as part of the hive.

We're also okay with an internal police securing your ass and assets. This is Canada! One of the great brides between softie liberalism and communism or anarchism; where they end up equating to the SAME THING when our young, prospective "anars" reach their 30s. Save your career!

a lower profile? He could still do anarchist projects just as Ariel does, for example. However, he loves to put himself out here because he knows he has cultivated an audience and this thread only validates his cultivation. I'm sure he is laughing at the attention. But I question why the need for attention in the first place? It is pure theatre: "Booooooo" "Hisssssss" cried the audience as Aragorn! enters the stage. Aragorn! scowls right back. Couldn't be any more normal.

how do you do that and keep a low profile?
other people in lbc hide behind him because we're not as ready to deal with bullshit. him being prepared doesn't mean that it isn't fucked up and, in a better world, wouldn't happen. so, kudos to the oogles-in-question and their defenders for being just as fucked up as other know-nothings.

everyone and anyone who thinks Atassa and eco-extremism are "Fascists" is goddamn moronic (spare me the ableist call-outs) and proves the lack of knowledge people have about Fascism...

Fascism is Humanism, it is moralistic, it is progressive, Eco-extremism advocates for the anthesis of all that, it is misanthropic in the sense that everyone is an enemy not based on single identity characteristics, it has destroyed the idea of Morality of the attack

anarchist liberals got their feelings hurt because they got told the truth about them and they can't face it

once again these anarchists show their anti-native self,

Book burning like the religious far-right and the "fascists" they supposedly hate

So eco-crust punk types who love the band "Dystopia" have a problem with misanthropy? I'm really confused here, it's okay to roar along to the lyrics "Humanicide, human beings should have never evolved at all" but it's not okay to publish a book that basically says the same thing?

Trying to put my finger on why this shit seems stupid and dumb on principle, when I'm happy about DGR having been forcefully 86ed from the movement, would giggle at news of Chomsky getting maced, and have read about far more violent conflicts between @s in other times and places without stressing.
I guess it just sounds like, personal behavior aside (HIGHLY doubt Aragorn did the only rudes all weekend) this was more about people wanting to show the PERSONALITY they've heard bad things about online what for, but not wanting the awkwardness of confrontation when they're right in front of you in a dangerous space and every factor is in your favor. Not to mention the ways it seems that no authoritarian lefty has faced the same kind of anarchist hostility that LBCs recently faced, not necessarily out of inherent sympathy as much as calculated weighing of social consequences in this moment. Fuck with the Little Black Cart table and half your library wont disappear, but argue with the wrong tankie in public and half your friends might. Sucks cause I wanna root for nihilist oogles whenever that's an option, but so it is.

I'm kinda underwhelmed by this bookfair... If it was a dangerous space how come Aragorn was just tear-gassed? We once did that as a practical joke in a squat in France. No knives or bats, at least? This is sooo telling of the anarchist subcultures in the US. This is why I find the talk on nonviolence to be pointless, as we're already a nonviolent subculture of articulate polite intellectuals who can't stand the view of some angry crazy guy waving a utility axe at them.

Actions such are these exemplify the erasure of any possibility of good faith. Someone travels 2,000 to and from this event -- someone who's work in the anarchist space led to a resurgence of interest in nihilism and arguably influenced, whether directly or indirectly, practically anyone with an active interest in second wave anarchy in the US context -- and this is the way they're treated? Spineless, cretinous fucking trash...

I cannot even thathom why he'd travel that far to talk to a few thousand jumped up little middle class kids anyway? I mean, they're all on that poverty tourism, not like they gonna buy the fuckin books, is it? :/

Steal things because you want them, but placing this morality on it, and this authoritarian view of "x" gets to decide what should and shouldn't be read, especially when none of them can actually and factually come up with an argument against Atassa or eco-extremists beyond the liberal yelling of "everyone is a fascist" and yet still claim to be an anarchist or nihilist or whatever label you want to hide your liberalism behind

This thread is so adolescent. It's like high school all over again. Grow up, sheeple. Veganism is inhuman and decidedly middle class. Anyone who calls themselves "Aragorn" ( a fictional royalist killer in a children's book) has personal issues that obviously would play out in a social (anti-social?) setting. Pepper spraying anyone is very cop, very establishment. People filled with anger and fear buy guns and bear spray and such. Congrats, you are now right-wing. Childish pranks (like theft) do nothing but irritate. Irritation is not the point of anarchy and rebellion. We are at war. Act like warriors, like wolves, not suburban brats in a filthy sandbox.

I know a growing number of people who are just amped up on outrage all day, every day, looking for people to unload on. Man, that must be nice. I envy them. Don't know enough to be that angry yet, myself.

Do not go there to that realm of ressentiment and internal unresolved angst.These saxxonwoolf caricatures are not beserkers, nor encountered the fury and wrath of the autonomous siege masters. DO NOT UNLOAD ON THE THOUGHT LORDS AND GRACEFUL ONES!!!

This will probably be deleted, yes, but I also wish to emphasize the futility of unloading violently ones anger on semi'moronic epsilons who abound and make up a majority of the Western population. Rather, instruction and enlightening them to an irrational chaotic spontaneity in their everyday life rather than the mechanistic rational economic transactional relationships which dominate their cognitive capacities.

Back to the OP- So, this little self-referential shite show goes something like this.

Some self-righteous knucklehead used 325 to dox some random troll.

They missed their intended target in their driveby and ended up doxing some bystander and his kids. That does kinda suck, no matter who this wrongly targeted person was.

The troll they intended to dox is actually a doxing little shitstain themselves so we are now stuck in the awkward situation of defending a doxer for being doxed.

Nonetheless, all that aside, doxing is akin to snitching so we cannot defend the doxing in this case because "so and so deserved it." Doxing is wrong and a weak-ass passive-aggressive move. It is akin to snitching. Period.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch--

We have a milieu, which calls itself anarchy, which has clearly been appropriated and compromised. Maybe, MAYBE, 1% of the people who identify this title these days function in a way that resembles some kind of good faith behavior. Mostly though, not so much.

In fact, as much as some people may not like to admit it, the term anarchy has been tainted. If you associate with the term, you are unfortunately and immediately covered in the patina of behavior, some would like to say is a exercised by a "vocal minority" but in reality is more than that.

Why persist? Is a label that important? Let the shit heads have it. Because then they win? It's a pyrrhic victory. You're trying to reclaim ground that has already been salted.
tl;dr- Why you still goin' to book fairs that identify as "anarchist", bro?

You're wasting your time and energy, fighting over a tendency that is no longer a tendency but has rather devolved into a fashion accessory, worn by people that do not represent even a fraction of your interests and have no interest in good faith conversations. They can't even muster the courage and fortitude it would take to confront you in real-life. They must resort to sneaky, snitchy, passive-aggressive, weak ass tactics of avoidance of confrontation. I know from experience that these people will never get in the same room and behave in the same ways that they will online, or undercover. By acting in such a way they forfeit any respect you may have accorded them. FORGET THEM AND FORGET TRYING TO INTERACT WITH THESE PEOPLE. You're wasting time and energy better spent on your projects.

Go about the business of working on your projects with people you can at least engage in food faith dialogues with or failing that at least people you can have a healthy debate and respectful disagreement with. These kinds of people do exist, just not in abundance. So be it.

you definitely express (if a bit long windedly, certainly with plenty of flava) my knee jerk reaction too. and it's a solid response.
but there are people who do care. people who are starting out, people who are hanging in, and people who have left but still keep their eyes open. the people who still use and appreciate the opportunity of a tabler to come and have conversations that they wouldn't get to have anywhere, or with anyone else in their lives (yet).
what i'm arguing is partly in your category of "not giving up on the word" but it's also a reflection that no-group-of-people-is-a-monolith, and every time we go into public (well, every time i do) it's an expression of some kind of important optimism. that optimism isn't important to everyone, it's not always important to me, but it's still important.
are there other ways it can be expressed?

I agree 100% when applied to me or you, for example.
But one caveat could me made in the case of A! in the role of promoting LBC. Of course, if it’s unpleasurable to him, someone else can do it, but it’s good for LBC to promote their books at bookfairs.

but obviously it's both pleasurable and not pleasurable. getting to talk to interesting and/or interested people is the life force of a lot of anarchist projects. putting up with the bullshit is irritating and distracting.
furthermore, it's not like there are a ton of people who are willing AND able to table events. A! does it partly because he's better at it than a lot of other people, who are not, after all, just replaceable cogs.
do i sound bitter? this thread (some of which has been removed, obviously) reminds me that i am bitter. it's not you, i 'm sure. :)

I am gravely disappointed. Again you have made me unleash my dogs of war.

None here are without sin. But I have an honorable compromise. Just walk away. Give me the atassas, the anarchism, the milieu, and the whole bolo, and I’ll spare your Uniques. Just walk away; I will give you safe passage in the wasteland. Just walk away and there will be an end to the horror.